Childhood Sweethearts
by FS
Summary: He firmly believes that they are fated to be, and maybe they really are... (Higo Ryusuke/Haibara Ai romance; subtle Ai/Shinichi for the attentive reader; Higo Ryusuke/Okino Yoko platonic friendship)


**Disclaimer:** Why does "Detective Conan" belong to Gosho Aoyama, why?

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 **Childhood Sweethearts**

 _by FS_

for aritzen (SN1987a)

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It helps to write things down to clear your mind, asserts Yoko-chan.

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He isn't a writer—he can barely remember how to write—but since he feels utterly desperate, he will try.

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 _Ai, light of my existence, fire of my life. My heart, my soul, the only haunting treasure island my worthless eyes have ever feasted on…_

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Don't plagiarize, Yoko-chan scolds him. You're stealing from _Lolita_ , and Nabokov's original prose was: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." Also, what is Stevenson's _Treasure Island_ doing in your story?

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Ah, but "fire of my loins" is so… No! And "treasure island" isn't an allusion to Stevenson (he hasn't even read that novel) but only a phrase he used to illustrate how precious Ai is to him. Isn't using great literary sources an art? Someone said that bad writers borrow while good writers steal. (He can't remember who it was.)

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Stealing is only an art if you manage to create something new and original with the elements you've taken from the literary source while your writing was… never mind! But you're more well-read than I thought if you know the beginning of _Lolita_ by heart.

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It's the only novel he has ever touched, and since he was stuck on the first page for months before continuing the story… but Yoko-chan doesn't need to know this.

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 _I knew she was too young for me—but I couldn't resist her aura, which was the air of a queen, irresistibly alluring and breathtakingly majestic in its dazzling, glittering radiance and it rainbowed colouring…_

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I don't think the word "rainbowed" exists, murmurs Yoko-chan.

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Do you want to know the story now or not? he asks, mildly exasperated. She is like an embittered coach who prepares the team for losing before training it for the game. Maybe it's only her rebellion against her perpetually smiling, optimism-infusing public persona, but he refuses to be the victim.

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You know, maybe you should keep to the facts so that we can get the gist of it before I have to go home. Tomorrow I have to get up at five (a.m., not p.m., mind you!) for the set of _Childhood Sweethearts_.

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Yoko-chan also suggests that he use the third-person narration since it will help him distance himself from the happenings.

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Thus he has jotted down the skeleton of his failed miracle romance. Maybe he will flesh it out someday.

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 **" _Seven Weddings & One Reunion"_**

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 _Their story started like_ Four Weddings and a Funeral _, but it didn't end like the movie, alas._

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(Maybe because there was no funeral, Yoko-chan morbidly suggests.)

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 _He still can't tell what went wrong. Was it something he said? Or was it something he didn't say?_

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 _They had met before, more than once, but their fateful meeting took place at the lavish dream wedding of The Sleeping Kogoro's daughter—the wedding he attended with Yoko-chan, who had been invited to sing the newlyweds a song. (Yoko-chan's manager believed that it would benefit both of them to pretend that they were dating since things had become quiet around Yoko-chan, who wasn't accustomed to vying for the attention of her fans on Grumblr Litter.)_

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 _He was talking to the groom when he caught the burning gaze of the girl in the blue dress. It was hard not to be drawn into the desperate, passionate depth of those beautiful, shimmering, soulful orbs—_

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(Never, ever, use "orbs" for eyes! Yoko-chan snaps. Don't ask me why you shouldn't! The abundance of adjectives is terrible enough!)

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 _It was hard not to be drawn into the_ (erased!) _depth of her beautiful_ (erased!) _eyes, so he abandoned the groom to join the girl at the bar. She was stabbing the lemon pie the well-meaning bride had put on her plate; and when he took the fork out of her hand and joked that he would rescue her from her lemon pie if she wanted, their story began…_

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 _Although the girl of his dreams, for reasons unknown to him, didn't seem in the best of moods that night, the two of them got along just fine. Ai-chan and he disappeared together into the garden to chat about soccer, and it seemed she knew even more about him than he had expected. To his deluded mind, she sounded like a fan._

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 _They exchanged phone numbers, which worried the groom, who drew her aside to tell her that soccer players were playboys. She retorted that detectives weren't known to be the most faithful husbands and boyfriends either, much to his delight. He held her hand for a moment when they said goodbye._

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 _They attended Shiratori Ninzaburo and Kobayashi Sumiko's wedding, Hattori Heiji and Toyama Kazuha's wedding, and Yamato Kansuke and Uehara Yui's wedding together—weddings in spring were very much in vogue that year. Their relationship naturally stopped at kissing, considering how young she was, and they had to keep it secret for fear of the press._

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It would have been a fine scandal, Yoko-chan smirks. Big Osaka's star dates fourteen-year-old student!

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 _After The Sleeping Kogoro's reunion with his wife (they have split up again in the meantime), after Chiba Kazunobu and Miike Naeko's summer wedding, Kuroba Kaito and Nakamori Aoko's autumn wedding, and the Professor's marriage to Fusae-san, their relationship changed. Ai spent most of her free time at his place, and the inevitable happened…_

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He mistrusts Yoko-chan's claim that he should add more details to this part. He also omits that he can recall the time before Shiho's parents died (before Shiho was taken away by the Organization), that he told Ai he firmly believed the two of them to be tied together by fate's red string when he proposed to her...

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And that Kudo-san was getting divorced.

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 _To this day, he is haunted by the remembrance of her horror-filled eyes when she bid him farewell._

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A/N: SN (aritzen) has challenged me to keep this under 1000 words. This fic is 999 words long. ;)

As always, all sorts of comments and critique are welcome!


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